A to Z

“Inside the Outbreaks” Author, Panel Discuss U.S. Epidemic Intelligence Service

Vermont author Mark Pendergrast explores the role of the Epidemic Intelligence Service in his book "Inside the Outbreaks." He will lead a panel discussion on the topic at UVM on Feb. 21, 2012 at 4:30 p.m.

Since 1951, an elite group of public health officers – called the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) – has been charged with investigating and identifying disease epidemics. Part of a program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these specially-trained detectives have solved such medical mysteries as Reye's Syndrome and Legionnaires’ disease, and helped to eliminate wild polio and eradicate smallpox, saving countless lives in the process.

On February 21, a talk by Mark Pendergrast, author of Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), and a panel of former EIS officers now working in Vermont, titled “Investigating Outbreaks: The Epidemic Intelligence Service,” took place at the University of Vermont College of Medicine's Medical Education Center. A reception and book-signing followed the discussion.

The event was co-sponsored by the Vermont Public Health Association, UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences, UVM College of Medicine, and the Vermont Department of Health.